Ferguson, from Tragedy to Farce

Rich Lowry of National Review Online takes a look at Ferguson, Mo., as that unfortunate town becomes a staging ground for increasingly exotic protests. Here's a sample:

It wasn't so long ago that Ferguson, Mo., was supposed to be an American morality tale of racism, the militarization of police, and all manner of other evil. For a few weeks in August, the attention of the national media focused on the suburb of St. Louis, and MSNBC practically broadcast nothing else. President Barack Obama even mentioned Ferguson at a U.N. speech in the context of terror groups that behead people and sectarian conflicts that kill hundreds of thousands of people.

While the media long ago moved on, the protests have persisted, entering their late, decadent phase of self-indulgent triviality. Cornel West got arrested last week, and Al Sharpton is heading back to Ferguson at the end of the month to pump up attention for what styles itself a movement, although it is more tinny by the day.

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In nearby St. Louis [recently], an off-duty cop working as a private security guard shot to death a teen who had fired at him with a Ruger 9mm. It turned out the gun had been stolen two weeks earlier, and the teen, monitored with an ankle bracelet, had been awaiting trial on a felony concealed-weapon charge. This event was nonetheless filtered through the lens of Ferguson. Protesters took the streets to demonstrate against what would strike most people as a legitimate act of self-defense, chanting the inapt "Hands up, don't shoot!"